Lil' Luna

Lifestyle blog Lil' Luna grew from someone's passion project, into a thriving business that has generated over $750,000 in ad revenue, directly attributable to traffic from Pinterest.

75M

page views driven to site

$750K

in corresponding ad revenue

An important realization

Kristyn Merkley is the enterprising force behind the popular recipe and DIY blog, Lil' Luna, which she launched in 2010.

For the first few years, Lil’ Luna was just a hobby. When someone told Kristyn she could make money from it, she’d just given birth to her second child and resources were tight. While the idea was intriguing, it seemed out of reach. Still, even if she was strapped on time, Kristyn made sure she posted to her blog three to fives times each week.

From the outset, Kristyn had been using Pinterest to fuel inspiration for her blog. After a few years of saving other people’s Pins, she realized she could create Pins featuring her own content. Making her own Pins gave Lil’ Luna a serious boost in traffic. Previously, her blog saw about 100,000 page views a month. Once Kristyn started getting traffic from Pins, she started seeing well over one million page views every single month.

Kristyn’s success on Pinterest inspired her to dream even bigger for her blog. "Because of my growth on Pinterest," Kristyn said, "I realized this could be a real full-time business."

Kristyn MerkleyOwner, Lil' Luna

“I get to do what I love most, which is be a mom, but I also get to run a business. I get paid to create, and I feel grateful that I can do this and do it all from home. I really don’t think I would have been able to grow so fast or have turned it into a business so quickly if it wasn’t for Pinterest.”

Shifting focus to Pinterest

Getting more traffic boosted Kristyn’s revenue from the ads she hosted on her site. That revenue growth encouraged her to double down on her Pinterest strategy. The extra money also gave her resources to hire a team. Together, they developed a content strategy and started creating Pins regularly.

The Lil’ Luna team created Pins for recipes, decorating ideas, DIY crafts, gift ideas, family game nights, home and garden projects and lots more. They also developed a brand identity for their Pins, pairing photos with a distinctive title font.

When Lil’ Luna hit 100,000 followers on Pinterest, brands started approaching the team for collaborations. They wanted to work with Kristyn for her Pinterest expertise and dedicated following. Since then, Lil’ Luna has partnered with several big name brands including Huggies, Kroger and Betty Crocker.

Featured board

Driving traffic and revenue

Pinterest remains Lil’ Luna’s top source of traffic. Since 2014, it has driven over 75 million page views to Lil’ Luna. Thanks to that traffic, Lil’ Luna has seen an incremental $750,000 in revenue from the blog’s banner ads, closer to $1 million when factoring in brand partnerships.

Today, Lil’ Luna has over 400,000 followers and more than 10 million monthly viewers on Pinterest. And most importantly, Kristyn gets to grow her blog into a business that provides full time income, while she works from home and does her top passion in life: Being a mom to six kids.